Clappison, who has over 17 years’ experience in the payments space, started his career at Newcastle Building Society alongside Kani Payments’ founder and CEO Aaron Holmes, building out a cards business, working largely with early start-up e-money issuers.

Since then, Clappison has held tenure at TSYS in a range of roles, including pre-sales, product and partnership management, and at Virgin Money, where he was part of the team which launched the Virgin Money credit card business. This business now has over 2 million customers and is a UK market leader in credit cards.

As Kani Payments continues to scale, develop and expand globally from its home in Newcastle, the introduction of Clappison as a new COO will help to enhance operational efficiency and continue to support the strategic direction of the company throughout this exciting growth period.

Clappison’s key responsibilities will include overseeing the reporting and reconciliation teams as well as liaising with customers on their operational requirements. In addition, Clappison will join Aaron Holmes, CEO, Melissa Beckett, CMO and Steven Licciardi, CTO as the new senior leadership team, who together will focus on business and talent growth for Kani Payments and the wider North East of England region.

Kani Payments already champions talent in the North East of England through its apprenticeship programme with Baltic Apprenticeships, supporting career changes or the development of new skills for people of all ages, levels and experiences.

On his appointment to Kani Payments, Dan Clappison commented “A business cannot scale without a solid foundation and established operations. I want to ensure that, as we continue to grow, our clients have confidence that Kani Payments will continue to provide a great, reliable service and they know that we can support their businesses as they continue to grow.”

“I’m delighted to be joining Kani Payments at such a critical moment in its growth, to help build on the operational foundations the company already has in place. Having been based in Newcastle since 2003, I’m also proud to be supporting such a strong local company and championing talent in the North of England.”

The growth of Kani Payments comes at a time when data volumes are surging exponentially, having a massive effect on the data-heavy fintech sector: the amount of data globally is expected to reach 175 zettabytes by 2025, increasing from an estimated 44 zettabytes in 2020.

The award-winning Software-as-a-Service platform has already successfully disrupted the fintech scene from Newcastle in the North of England and reconciled more than €10 billion in processed payments volume to date.

Named as an emerging fintech hub in the 2021 Kalifa Review of UK Fintech, Newcastle is fast becoming one of the most exciting and appealing locations for dynamic financial services and fintech players such as Kani Payments.

Aaron Holmes, CEO of Kani Payments, added “Since its inception, Kani Payments has championed the talent and opportunity that the North East of England offers. In fact, we’re currently recruiting for a number of critical roles that will help the company as it develops and expands.”

“As part of our growth we have been strengthening the senior leadership team and addressing all areas of the business, to now also include operations and sales. In turn, this means we have strengthened senior guidance throughout the customer journey. It’s fantastic to have Dan on board as we embark on this exciting period of growth.”

The past year has been especially exciting for Kani Payments as it hit several milestones and announced its selection onto the Mastercard Start Path Global programme. Kani Payments plans to build on this success throughout 2022 and beyond by further extending its team, driving its global growth and expanding into new regions.